Episode 18: You Can’t Go Home Again: The Vanishing Hitchhiker

You can’t go home again.
From Dorothy to Odysseus to the guy scream-singing “One of Us” in the car next to you during your hour long commute, people spend a lot of time and effort trying to make their way home.
The idea of being stopped mid-journey, of never making it home, seems to have had a very long history in fables. One could argue, this is evidence that that fear has had an equally lengthy history in our collective consciousness. That’s exactly what we argue in this episode. Examining the urban legend, ‘The Vanishing Hitchhiker’ we dig in to the fear of never making it home, and the many ways this has been expressed over time.
From people who have made hitchhikers vanish, like Edmund Kemper, to mysterious unsolved cases like the orange sock murders, to the historical legends associated with roadside phantoms around the country; we look at the many and varied roots and the constant evolution of this modern myth.

Special Guest Story Teller: Erik Rivenes of the Most Notorious! Podcast